


The Labyrinth

by knavessofhearts



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-11 02:31:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 21,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4417586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knavessofhearts/pseuds/knavessofhearts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>HAPPY RUMBELLE CHRISTMAS IN JULY  !!!!</p><p>A Labyrinth AU<br/>"A down on her luck Belle French, whilst babysitting an orphaned young boy named Baden, accidentally falls through a portal into another world whilst reading a bedtime story. She must go through and rescue him from the Goblin King before midnight or they will both be trapped in this world forever. Belle strikes a deal in order to defeat the Goblin King, with the Dark One named Rumplestiltskin."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fate Is A Funny Thing

 

 

All her life, all anyone had told Belle was that she had an adventurous imagination- and that one day it would lead her to danger. She’d always thought they’d meant she would end up in some dead end job, fall in love with the wrong person or worse, but she never expected just how true those words ended up being. And not in the way anyone could have imagined, not even her.

 

As a child, the words she read on the pages in her stories felt as real to her as anything. Her father scorned her love for them, telling her she couldn’t live with her head in the clouds imagining brave knights and evil goblins when she was grown up. Her mother had been the same, from what she could remember of her. It was where Belle’s love for books was created, in her mother’s fascination of the stories and the ones they’d read together. Belle suspected it was also why her father disliked them so much, ever since Mother had vanished- every book in their home was just another reminder of the gaping hole in their lives. Those books were how Belle kept her mother alive. They were her only connection to Belle and her Father now.

Stories about far off lands and daring adventures gave Belle comfort when nothing else could, and chased off the cruelty everyone spouted at her. Sure, her life hadn’t turned out exactly how she dreamed- but it wasn’t some dead-end job like they said! Belle had been a librarian, and was now out of the job after the library was foreclosed.  She had been dating Gaston for six months, and he still sometimes accidentally called her Elle....who was she fooling, her life was exactly like they’d warned her it would turn out. She was jobless and in a miserable relationship with someone who was more concerned about his own appearance than remembering her name. She’d kept waiting for her life to begin, to start her own adventures, but kept getting stuck on the ground- trapped under everyone else.  

Belle knew this life wasn’t her fate, that she was meant for something more. No one would decide her fate for her.  

Belle just never expected her fate to be changed on a Friday night, in her pyjamas. Gaston had tried to make her come with him to the bar that night; and Belle could think of nothing more unappealing than Gaston’s sleazy friends in a sleazy bar. So she had feigned an exhausted yawn and told him she couldn’t go out tonight, and Gaston had flown out the door faster than she could blink. As the door closed behind his trail of dust, he called out not to wait up and that he would be back before midnight; Belle sincerely doubted that. Knowing him, he would crash at his friends’ house and come stumbling back home with a killer hangover at dawn.  

Belle’s plans for the evening sounded much more desirable as she picked out an old, dusty book she had been meaning to reread for awhile now. She had barely gotten to the end of the first page, when her phone rang. Expecting it to be a drunken Gaston begging her to join them, Belle was surprised to hear another voice at the end of the line.

“Belle? It’s Ruby. I need your help.”

And just like that, Belle’s evening got a lot more interesting and dangerous than she could ever imagine.

An hour later, Ruby showed up at Belle’s door with a tired young boy at her side. Ruby had recently encouraged Belle to explore her latest career endeavour as a social worker. Belle was only reserved for looking after a kid when all else failed or when Ruby needed a favour, she wasn’t even technically a foster parent yet. Tonight was one of those nights where Belle was the only option.

“They’d found him living in an abandoned house, the police think he’d been there for weeks, probably longer. The officers asked him what happened to his parents and he said he couldn’t remember. Child Services has no record of him, it’s like he just appeared out of nowhere.” Ruby hushed to Belle ear as a little boy with scruffy brown hair and ripped jeans explored her living room with curious eyes.

“Are you sure about this Ruby? I’ve never looked after a kid before!” Belle whispered in a panic back to her.

“There was nowhere else to take him; the closest group home is full. Don’t worry Belle it’s only for one night. Two social workers will be here in the morning to drive him to the home in Boston. I just needed somewhere for him for the night.”

Belle breathed slightly easier when she knew it was only for one night. She could handle that, it was only one night. What could possibly happen in one night?

“You’ll do fine Belle, he’s a good kid- just scared.” Ruby reassured her before she handed Belle the boy’s file and a backpack carrying his few belongings.

“Wait-What’s his name??” Belle hushed, looking back over to the boy now investigating Belle’s extensive bookcase-which spanned across the entire back wall of the room and spilled onto makeshift stacks around it.

“He responded to Bae, they think it’s short for Baden, but he seems to mostly like Bae.” Ruby said before she left and Belle was suddenly alone with the boy, and no idea what to do.  
  


Bae stood on the opposite side of the room to her, Belle clutching his file and bag. He looked no older than 12, but seemed so much smaller and afraid in this stranger’s apartment.

“Hi. I’m Belle.” She attempted at breaking the ice with her most comforting smile.

“I’m Bae.” he replied in a small voice, and went back to staring at his beaten-up sneakers. Belle knew all too well what this boy was probably feeling, having his whole life ripped out from underneath and thrown into uncertainty, with people telling him what to do and where to go. The least she could do was make him feel safe and loved for one night.

“You hungry?” Belle offered, and immediately Bae’s face lit up with an almost smile.

An hour later, Belle’s fridge had been ransacked to oblivion and they had feasted upon every morsel of ice cream, chips, strawberries and sweets they could find. Bae didn’t say much, and Belle didn’t push him. Eventually he thawed out and started to laugh & smile at Belle’s attempts to make him happy. Belle was glad she could at least make him forget whatever had happened to him for a small amount of time, and couldn’t help but notice how much more she was smiling too with him around.

Before she knew it, they had ploughed through two movies,  it was almost 11pm and Bae’s eyes had started to droop. She didn’t have a spare room in her apartment, and made up her couch for him with a nest of blankets and pillows. As she started to turn off the lights and close the curtains, Bae started to grow anxious and jittery again, a fear in his eyes Belle recognised. She walked back over to her couch, and sat on the corner as Bae clutched the blankets around himself tighter.

“I used to be afraid of the dark too, it’s okay.” Belle whispered to him, and turned back on the light next to them. Belle started to tighten the thick woollen blankets around Bae as a way to comfort him, to make the world around him seem smaller and closer- a tactic she still employed whenever she was sleeping in a new place she didn’t quite trust.

“When I used to get scared, you know what my mother would do?”

Bae shook his head as Belle stood up and walked over to the bookcase. She ran her fingers along the spines, searching until they found a rustic, blue book with gleaming, gold trimmings.

“She used to read me a story until I would fall asleep. Sometimes it would only be a page, sometimes we read it cover to cover.” Bae sat up curiously, and looked at the book Belle held tenderly between her hands.

“This was my favourite; I can’t tell you how many times she read it to me.” Belle recalled. And it was true, Belle knew every single word printed on each page, it was a special book.

As a former librarian, this book was the epitome of what she would normally despise. Too many page corners had been turned down that the book didn’t ever properly close, one page was even missing at the end, and countless food and coffee and wine stains could be found hidden within the pages.

If Belle had found this book in her library, she would have scorned whoever caused such careless damage of something as precious as a book. But each stain or tear of a page in this book was a memory, each mark left upon it was a mark of Belle’s mother- signs that showed this book had been used, and read over and over. It showed life, long after the ones who left those marks were gone. Gaston had almost thrown it out once, mistaking it for too damaged to ever be considered worthy of keeping around, and Belle had almost hit him. This book, with all its imperfections was worth more than every other story in this room.

Belle, temporarily lost in her recollections as she held onto one of the last momentums of her mother and their cherished memories, almost didn’t realise Bae had left the couch and wandered into the kitchen until he returned with two mugs in hand. Hot cocoa with cinnamon strangely enough, a concoction Belle had never realised would taste so delicious until she tried it.

“What’s the story called?” Bae asked, perched on the edge of the couch as Belle settled in next to him, sharing the blankets as they reclined and settled in. Belle felt so oddly reminiscent as Bae snuggled up against her, as she was now the adult reading the child a story to comfort them. The strangest part wasn’t even that Bae wasn’t her child, and basically a stranger to her, but how right it felt. How natural it seemed to be sitting on her couch in the middle of the night reading a story to him.

“It’s called Labyrinth!” Belle breathed in wonder, and saw the same excitement spark in Bae’s eyes as her’s had done when her mother first read it to her.

“It’s an amazing story, filled with adventure, travelling to far off lands and meeting dangerous and exciting people. And it’s about finding your way through challenges and surviving them, finding light in the darkness, who you find in there, along with finding yourself.”

“Does it have dragons?” Bae inquired as he took a sip of cocoa, Belle smirked.

“Maybe one or two, wanna find out?” Belle turned to the first page titled Chapter One, and the words came to life at the touch of her voice.

She could always so clearly picture the world and the story she read, as if it were as real as any memory in her mind, and sharing it with someone when she read out loud always seemed to shatter the illusion. They never shared what she saw, and would always bring her back down to reality. Bae wasn’t one of them. As Belle spoke the beginning words of the story, the room seemed to fill with the world on the page. Bae was enjoying the story, or perhaps enjoyed reading a story with someone Belle wondered, and he began to read along with her.

The air seemed to grow colder in the living room though the fire on the other side of the room still burned brightly. Belle could have sworn she smelt pine trees, even though she distinctly remembered her and Gaston had disposed of their Christmas tree two weeks ago. As they reached the end of page 23, Belle’s eyes blurred as though she had stood up too quickly- and squeezed her eyes shut before opening them once again.

She was met with a blinding light of a rising sun over a forest of tall trees and snow soaking her slippers. She was no longer sitting on her couch next to Bae, but standing alone in a cold and quiet forest with no one beside her but the book in her hand, still bookmarking the spot they had just read. Belle turned around to see nothing but more forest and more snow surrounding her, bright as day even though she was still wearing her pyjamas and gown. She glanced at the clock on her wrist, it was still 11:35pm.

Everyone had told her she had a vivid imagination when it came to stories, but Belle was in the midst of realising they may have been frighteningly right.

 


	2. This Will Make An Amazing Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle encounters an unlikely ally who will help her find Bae.

Her toes numbing as she made her way through ankle deep snow was all the evidence Belle needed to convince herself that this was definitely not a dream. Her trusty fluffy gown seemed rather moot in an actual wintery forest and offered no protection as she wrapped it around herself. Belle couldn’t even begin to figure out how she got here, or where here was, and only hoped she would find a road or a building before her toes began to fall off.

More than her curiosity of where she was, where was Bae??

All along her trek to find some sign of life in the dense forest she called out Bae’s name, hoping he too had somehow stumbled into this forest and was trying to find her. Her curiosity began to turn to worry and panic when she remembered he did not even have pyjamas, and was wearing Gaston’s old shirt and rolled up summer shorts. He didn’t even have socks, if he was here he needed Belle’s help and she couldn’t find him!

All she’d had to do was look after him for one night and already she had failed.

A break in the tree line up ahead revealed a dirt road only slightly obscured by the snow, and Belle started walking south. Eventually, the snow receded and melted as the sun grew higher and her clothes dried. She had been walking for what felt like hours, yet every time she checked her watch, it showed the same time. 11:35pm. Belle pondered whatever had happened to land her here, had likely broke her watch, the watch her father had given her for her 15th birthday. It wasn’t a priceless heirloom, it was simply a watch, but the thought of it breaking, losing one of the two pieces of reality she carried with her, only made her clench the second - the book - even tighter to her in for fear it too  would break and vanish.

Belle turned a bend in the road, and came into view of a village down the ways. She breathed a sigh of relief at the sight, people bustling in and out of the small houses ahead. She was safe, she could ask one of them where she was and what happened, if they had seen Bae. Things were finally starting to make sense again, and the confirmation of seeing other people made Belle not feel alone and lost despite still being firmly in both categories.

Surely there was someone here that could help her make sense of what was going on.

As the image of the bustling town came clearer, Belle’s feet slowed. There were horses pulling carts, a man fetching a pail of water from the well, a blacksmith banging metal and two women conversing as they crossed across Belle’s eye line, wearing the strangest clothing. It was like a snapshot from a fairytale, of a simple  village going about their day.

Had she been asking the wrong questions to herself? Perhaps Belle shouldn’t be asking where she was, but when….or, as she looked at the book clutched to her chest, _in_ what. Before this had all happened, Belle and Bae had been reading about the village that bordered the Labyrinth, although in the story the villagers called it a different name that she now struggled to recall…

Belle looked down at her mangled attire and clotted hair. She couldn’t be seen looking like this, her clothes were definitely going to make her stick out like a sore thumb. If what had happened had really happened, Belle must not let herself be seen like this.

She ducked behind a bush and eventually found her salvation- a clothesline with linens swinging in the gentle breeze out of sight from the villagers. Yes, that was her first stroke of luck since landing in this strange place.  

Once she got the clothes, then she could ask the villag….

“You won’t find what you’re looking for there, dearie,” a giggling voice called out behind Belle, and she screamed in surprise at the sudden noise and slipped on the muddy terrain, crashing onto the ground and sending the voice into another fit of laughter.

As she dusted off as much mud, snow and twigs as she could, Belle made it back to her feet and turned to see a man lounging on a log a little ways back up the road, watching her with indifference. Belle swore she had been alone on that road, and would have _definitely_ remembered seeing this man as she walked past.

“Ho-How did you get there?” Belle gasped as the man pushed himself lazily off the log and sauntered towards her.

“I think the better question is...how did _you_ get _here_?” he proposed as he came to stand directly in front of her. Belle couldn’t stop her eyes from widening in shock and her jaw dropping slightly as she fully saw the man, if she could call him that.

He was dressed head to toe in varying, strange leathers unlike any Belle had ever seen, his skin seemed like that of a snake or a monster, and his eyes glowed like a devil's, making his childish grin with rotted teeth even more frightening. Surely this was a monster, reason and logic screamed to Belle, but his features and build were that of a man, he even walked like a man…

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s rude to stare?” He leaned in with a threatening glare to snarl at her, but Belle didn’t flinch. She knew she should be scared, of the beast that stood an arm’s length from her and threatening her with a menacing tone, yet she didn’t. Something behind his tone told Belle he didn’t want to hurt her; her father would have said it was her tendency to be too trusting of strangers, while her mother would have said it was her ability to see the good in others.

“Who are you?” Belle demanded, and the beast seemed to be taken-aback by her sudden intensity. Belle got the impression he was used to a different reaction to his demeanour.

“ _I_ ….am Rumplestiltskin! Or as others know me…. _The Dark One_ ” He sang with a grand flourish of his hands and a bow, like a jester.

“How do you know what i’m looking for?” Belle asked him, as he began to twirl his hands and pace around her.

“Because I know it is not a what. It is a who,” Rumplestiltskin said in his gleeful tone, like a child taunting.

“You know where Baden is?? Have you seen him?!” Belle frantically asked. Who knows what this man had said to Bae, he would have been so scared if he saw this man standing in front of him.

“Indeed I saw a boy, being taken away not far from here, couldn’t see a face i’m afraid, but wearing similarly strange clothes as you are,” he said as he waved his hand up and down at Belle’s clothes. “Is this what you wear in that world? Isn’t very pretty is it?”

“I was about to go to bed! These aren’t my normal clothes!” Belle defended. Why was she getting cross about his insulting of her clothes?? Another part of his insult came back to mind.

“What do you mean another world?”

Rumplestiltskin looked at her as though it were the most painfully obvious answer in the universe. “Well how did you think you got here? A time machine? You and your young companion fell through a portal. To another world. This world. The Enchanted Forest!”

The Enchanted Forest? Those words were more familiar than anything Rumplestiltskin had said since she met him, and she picked up the book she had dropped amongst the chaos. Labyrinth. The fictional world of the story was named the Enchanted Forest by its inhabitants. As he looked up at the tall trees, the bright sky and the man in front of her, she realised it was all real, it was the world she now found herself immersed in.

Rumplestiltskin, however, was a name that hadn’t been mentioned in the book, but his appearance and features matched another character…

“You’re the Goblin King aren’t you!? You’re the one who took him!” Belle took two frantic steps back away from the man who was the evil creature she had had nightmares of as a child. The Goblin King who stole children and turned them into member of his army.

Rumplestiltskin, however, didn’t seem the least bit phased by his secret being revealed.

“Well...The Goblin King did take your boy, but I am not the king of goblins I must admit.” He said in a false humble tone, Belle didn’t trust his words any more than his earlier threats.

“Why should I believe you? How do I know if you’re telling the truth?”

“You don’t.” He smirked through a vicious giggle that made Belle’s skin crawl. “But I can help you find your boy.”

“He’s not my-Wait, you’ll help me find Baden?” Belle perked up. Rumplestiltskin may not be the help she needed, but it was the only on offer. Perhaps he could prove useful in some aspect, all Belle had at this point was a frozen watch and slippers.

“I can help you with your lost item...for a price,” he haggled, and ran his fingers along his chin as if debating what that price was. “I believe we could be of mutual use for one another, dearie. You have something you must find, and so do I. Coincidentally, they happened to be in the same place!” Rumplestiltskin explained.

“And what place is that?” Belle asked.

“The Infinite Forest! A nasty place to get lost I hear. At the heart of the forest is the fortress you seek, where the boy is being held captive.” Another giggle and Belle’s blood turned hot.

That was it, the Labyrinth in the story was a forest that had no start and no end, with many dangers inside it. Whoever had taken Bae knew exactly where to keep him from escaping. Belle had to save him, he was her responsibility and she couldn’t let him suffer at the hands of the Goblin King.

“So you’ll help me get him back from the Goblin King?” she asked, and Rumplestiltskin nodded with a mocking bow. “And what do you want in return?”

“Something that is also hidden in the Infinite Forest, something that the Goblin King stole from me a long time ago. I simply would like to return the favour, and retrieve what is mine.”

“Why can’t you get it yourself?” Belle snarked, and Rumplestiltskin seemed almost surprised by the bite in her voice, or perhaps it was impressed. This was a strange man, Belle couldn’t help but think. Is aligning with a mad man any more insane than venturing into an infinite forest alone?

“Well, this forest is not like any other you may have ever encountered. It has rules, anyone may enter it; but only those in possession of a pure heart can find the way out and leave.”

“I’m guessing you don’t get to have the nickname The Dark One and have a pure heart.”

“Alas! Which is where you come in, dearie. So....” He held out his hand to Belle with another bow, as though he was about to propose marriage not a partnership to steal and rescue a kidnapped boy.

Her instincts still screamed to not trust this man, who so plainly admitted he was using her (more specifically her heart). But Bae was in trouble, and even in their brief time together, before they were ripped into a strange and unknown world, Belle felt connected to him. She had to save him, and this was the only way.

“...do we have a deal?”

Belle took his hand and shook it briefly, his skin feeling like scales and as cold as a reptile. If making a deal with the devil was her chance to be a hero, to start living an adventure rather than just reading about them, it was a deal she was willing to make.

“First order of business, then!” Rumplestiltskin recoiled from her hand the instant they had shook, and enveloped Belle in a cloud of red smoke. When it cleared, Belle’s slippers were replaced with sturdy boots, and her mud soaked gown vanished and in its place a decadent yet appropriate blue dress and cloak. She looked back to the clothesline she had planned to rob, with her previous clothes now replacing her more appropriate outfit.

“Was that necessary?” Belle glared, especially when she realised how tight the dress was. It was incredibly beautiful, simple yet elegant and allowed plenty of movement. Belle knew she would not be able to go on any kind of journey in her previous outfit, but now she had inadvertently robbed from those poor people.

“Well if you’d prefer to continue wearing those rags…” Rumplestiltskin went to wave his hand once more.

“No! It’s fine..” Belle stopped him, and he lowered his hands before waltzing back down the road towards a black and red carriage.

“Where the hell did that-”

“Do you want to stop and ask questions you already know the answer to,” Rumplestiltskin asked as he opened the door to the carriage. “Or do you want to get going, dearie?”

Belle paused for a few seconds before stubbornly stomping to the carriage and plumping down across from the Dark One. With a lazy wave of his hand, the carriage lunged forward and they were moving on. Belle tried to hold onto her frustration of this man, but her anger dissolved into confusion as she noticed he was knitting.

“The Dark One _knits_?” she hadn’t ever read that in her stories.

“The Dark One can do anything he likes, dearie. And that includes knitting if he so desires.” Belle didn’t know whether to laugh or worry.

After a moment of travelling in silence and watching a feared sorcerer knit, Belle’s nerves began to calm. She may not trust or believe this man yet, but he was sincere in his promises. His whole plan relied on her after all, he needed her just as much as she needed him.

“Belle. My name is Belle,” she chirped up after a while.

Rumplestiltskin paused in his intrinsic work of wool to look up at her with a strange look behind his reptilian eyes. It was hard to read any kind of emotion through them, but Belle could have sworn she saw them soften before he turned his attention back to his knitting. 


	3. Travelling To A Far Off Land

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle and Rumplestiltskin arrive at the Infinite Forest and enter.

Belle became so captivated by Rumplestiltskin’s knitting that the trip to the edge of the Infinite Forest seemed to take only a blink of an eye. She had watched him knit a simple scarf out of shining, golden wool that, upon further inspection Belle realised was actually the thinnest strands of actual gold. When she impulsively reached out to touch it, it was softer than hair and Rumplestiltskin recoiled in surprise at her proximity. She immediately retracted her arm once she saw his reaction, realising she had overstepped her boundaries. The way he clutched to his creation Belle realised it was intensely personal. She found herself mimicking his actions and closing her fingers tighter around her book.

The Dark One did not say a word the entire journey aboard their carriage, except for one mutter under his breath that ‘they are close’ and kept busily knitting.

Belle soon realised Rumplestiltskin was not knitting a scarf as it grew wider and longer the faster he spun his fingers around the needles. Soon enough it became a shawl, that glittered in the sunlight that snuck into the carriage. Belle couldn’t help but admire its beauty, its elegance as a purple light glowed from Rumplestiltskin’s fingers and a matching clasp sewed itself onto the shawl. The magic spread through the shawl like veins, as it travelled it transformed the shawl. The purple turning patterns of leaves and flowers onto its surface. Belle had never seen anything like it, and could barely believe her eyes.

The carriage slowed, and came to a halt on a patch of road identical to their entire journey, nothing looked like a grand entrance to the Infinite Forest or a sign declaring ‘You Are Here’. Not that Belle was expecting signage in the Enchanted Forest, but how did she know they were in the right place? How did Rumplestiltskin know?

“Are you sure this is it?” Belle couldn’t help but ask in uncertainty as they exited the carriage, absent-mildly accepting Rumplestiltskin’s hand as she stepped down onto the soft gravel.

As Belle got closer to the edge of the woods, the light in between each branch seemed to vanish and retreat into darkness the closer Belle got, until she was standing before the grand trees, and it looked as solid and impenetrable as a wall painted like a forest landscape. Belle reached out, expecting her hand to meet a solid and flat wall.

“Were you expecting a big sign? It is the Infinite Forest, wouldn’t be quite so infinite with an entrance and exit.” he said sarcastically. Belle didn’t answer, only glared.

“So how do we get inside then?”

“Well I already told you, dearie.” The return of his impish tone meant the return of Belle’s frustration.

“No you didn’t.”

“nnnyes I did.”

“ _No_. You didn’t!”

“I did.”

“ _NO_. You only said how to get out, not how to get in.” Belle retorted matter-of-factly.

Rumplestiltskin was poised to refute her argument, his finger triggered and ready to point like a 5 year old, until the words caught in his throat as he realised Belle was right. She shot him a pointed look to say _told you so_.

Belle smirked at having stopped the Dark One in his tracks, and marched determinedly to the edge of the shrubbery.

“Waitwaitwaitwait!” Rumplestiltskin materialised directly in her path, stopping Belle in her tracks.

“What? You said anyone could enter, and I assume that means they can enter anywhere!” She threw her arms out at the forest and tried to walk past him again once more. The forest that held Bae captive was right in front of her, she was itching to begin this journey and return Bae to where he belonged, as well as herself.

Rumplestiltskin’s hand holding her wrist pulled her back, her reaction delaying as she realised he was holding her, touching her- and that his skin was warm.

Rumplestiltskin recoiled as soon as Belle stopped moving.

“The Infinite Forest is a magical creation, a labyrinth of a spell. To enter something magical, you must-“Purple smoked swallowed Belle and she felt as though the ground beneath her had been ripped out of existence before returning almost immediately.

As the smoke cleared, Belle saw they were now immersed in the trees, no longer looking from the outside. They were inside the Infinite Forest.

“-enter magically!” Rumplestiltskin enthralled.

As she regained her bearings, she didn’t doubt for a second that he hadn’t planned this grand entrance from the beginning.

Belle felt a sense of relief, finally they were making progress to save Bae. She stole a glance back at her watch from habit, and realised the time had moved forward. 11:40pm.

“How…how is that possible?” Belle asked aloud to herself, and Rumplestiltskin answered anyway.

“Time works differently here, as I’m sure you have figured out. I suppose we have a timeline for fetching the boy?”

Belle nodded, and Rumplestiltskin marched forward.

“Then we shall begin.” He raised his arm and twirled it above his head, a golden cloak, the one he had been creating in the carriage joining it on the way down. Belle walked to stand beside Rumplestiltskin and admire the cloak once more. If she hadn’t known of his current profession as Dark One, All That Is Evil, he would have made an excellent tailor.

He offered the cloak to Belle.  “For you,” he said with a soft voice, before saying louder and firmly, “For your protection. It is embedded with powerful magic that will repel most unwanted advances- most importantly the cold.”

Belle wrapped it around herself and fastened the clasp just below her neck as Rumplestiltskin began walking down a beaten path. He was right, it warded off the cold despite being thinner and lighter than paper.

She followed behind him, and took advantage of their distance from one another to look more closely at the cloak’s pattern now that it was covering her.  She noticed hidden roses strewn all across it. Secretly, she lifted it to her nose and inhaled, it smelt like him and for some reason that brought her more comfort as she jogged to catch up with the Dark One. He had tried to cover up the cloak as a necessity for their mission, but Belle smiled at the hidden underlying meaning: Rumplestiltskin didn’t want her to be cold.

 

The unlikely duo walked in a strangely comfortable silence as they headed deeper into the forest, and Belle began to taste a coppery taste in the air that she had felt as she travelled to this world. It was magic, she could sense it, and as they headed deeper it grew stronger.

“So when are you going to tell me what we’re stealing back from the Goblin King?” Belle finally asked, and saw Rumplestiltskin’s lips close tighter.  “Well how am I meant to help you get it back if I don’t know what it is?”

“Dearie, dearie me….Is patience no longer a virtue in your land? Or manners?”

“Oh, because you have such an abundance of both in _your_ land?” Belle scoffed, and her eyes lit up when she saw he was trying to contain a smile behind his cool and calm exterior.

Eventually, night fell and Rumplestiltskin declared they wouldn’t travel any further until daylight. “There are many dangers in this maze, which we will surely encounter. I’d prefer best to do it when we can see them.”

They chose a clearing with a large fallen log similar to the one where Belle first saw Rumplestiltskin, and she informed him that she would search for wood for fire and return shortly.

When Belle entered the clearing carrying a large array of firewood in her arms, she dropped them in exasperation when she was met with the sight of Rumplestiltskin sitting smugly with his feet crossed and arms behind his head, warming himself by a homely fire.

“And you just neglected to tell me, and let me hunt for sticks for twenty minutes?!” Belle screamed, and in her mind she threw every stick at him at every enunciation. He dodged every onslaught effortlessly.

Belle threw her hands up and plopped down beside him, she was too tired and hungry to argue with an incessant man-child. Though she sat next to him by the fire, with a visible distance between them, Belle refused to look at him out of the corner of her eye. A plate filled of food guided itself onto Belle’s lap with a purple glow supporting it until Belle’s hands grabbed the plate. It was filled to the edge with warm chicken, vegetables and even a muffin on the very far side for dessert.

“If this is your way of apologising, I’m a vegetarian.”

The chicken was replaced with a steaming soup and two more muffins.

“…Thanks,” she muttered and discarded etiquette as she devoured the plate with all her ambition.

Belle did not comment or give Rumplestiltskin any satisfaction even as she emptied the pot of soup it would refill instantly. She knew he was doing this, her eyebrow raised as she wondered why. Perhaps he was genuinely apologetic about making her hunt needlessly for sticks.

After four bowls of soup, Belle picked errantly at the last muffin, while Rumplestiltskin gnawed at the chicken leg like a dog. She saw it more like an enthusiastic puppy with a bone, with an innocence to something as basic as seeing the Dark One eat. She never would have imagined he would be like this in person. It compelled her to reach into her small travelling bag and pull out the book.

She flicked to a random page near the end where The Dark One was mentioned. It was barely more than a footnote, but it mentioned that he was a sometimes rival, sometimes ally of the Goblin King, always to be feared and never to be trusted. But the harmless beast beside her looked like he could barely kill a fly as he tried to pick a piece of chicken out of his teeth.

With a full stomach, Belle finally began to realise just how tiring this day had been, or this last twenty minutes. She wasn’t sure which time to go by now. It had felt like a whole day, more than that even. Just trying to figure it out made her even more tired. Her eyes drooped and she fought to stay awake by staring into the fire. The flickers of the yellow and red flames began to transform into Bae’s scared face, the figures at the village, her bookcase and cups of hot cocoa. Belle slumped and fell asleep on Rumplestiltskin’s shoulder, unaware that he looked on at her with such surprise that would have made Belle question when was the last time someone had been so close to him like this.


	4. Dangerous & Exciting People

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle and Rumple learn more about each other in the infinite forest, Rumple learns about Belle’s book, Belle learns about Rumple’s relationship with the Goblin King and what they are tasked with stealing back. They encounter their first obstacle.

Belle didn’t remember falling asleep, but come morning she woke resting comfortably on a makeshift bed, her golden cloak acting as a blanket and her head resting on her travel bag. Rumplestiltskin was nowhere in sight and the fire spewed delicate smoke from its dying embers. Next to her head was a tiny plate of eggs in a basket- warm as if they had just been taken off the stove.

After finishing breakfast, her travel companion and aspiring magical chef still hadn’t reappeared. The notion of locating a mysterious sorcerer in a mysterious forest did not much appeal to Belle. She knew it would only result in her becoming lost, and Rumplestiltskin having to come rescue her much to his satisfaction no doubt. Instead she reignited the fire to warm the still chilly, morning air and fished out her book from her satchel.

Belle wasn’t sure how much help it would be on their mission, given how different this world was to what she had read on these pages. Books could only get her so far in life, could only give her glimpses of adventure. And now she was in one, thrown into the middle of an adventure. And Belle was thrilled by it all. For once, Belle didn’t know what the next page would mean, what would happen after every step.  

“You’re missing a page.” Belle jumped out of her skin as she looked up from her book to see Rumplestiltskin lounging across the fire twirling a twig in his fingers, acting as if he’d been there the whole time.

“You really have to stop doing that.” Belle grumbled as she shoved the book back inside her bag, “Or at least give a warning.”

“You have my word.” Rumplestiltskin smirked with a half-smile, before gesturing to the clearing of a worn path to their east.

“Shall we?”

Belle’s  second hour in the Enchanted Forest, but also her second day, was spent like most of her first: walking  alongside Rumplestiltskin in utter silence as her questions grew. Where were they walking to? Would they ever reach there? Was Bae okay? How does Rumplestiltskin know where to find him? How does Rumplestiltskin know the Goblin King?

“Why is it missing?” Rumplestiltskin asked.

“W-what?”

“The page, the last page of your little book. It was not torn carelessly it was cut out. What happened to the page?” Belle raised an eyebrow at the obvious curiosity in his tone, not filtered by taunting or mocking. He genuinely wanted to know something about her. She was touched by his apparent interest and kindness, a soft heart shrouded in darkness. Who would have thought..

“My mother used to take out the last pages of all the book we read together. When I was younger I used to get sad when a story I loved ended, so she took out the final page and would say ‘now the story will never end’. We’d make up our own endings instead, a new one every time.” Belle smiled fondly, as she thought of the box in the back of her wardrobe filled with every last page of the books her mother had carved out.

She’d never had the heart to open it and read the real endings of all their stories, when it would be just reminders of how every story she loved ended. Even though you can start again as easily as flipping back the pages, there were some things you could never go back to. Belle didn’t like endings.

“Endings serve their purpose, just like any beginning.” Rumplestiltskin told her before Belle realised she had said her last thought out loud.

“And what purpose is that?”

“To remind us what he have lost, and to find comfort in it, and the courage to start again.” Rumplestiltskin said with heaviness in his voice, like Belle’s. He was like her in more ways than she thought. Someone who spoke with such regret was someone she could trust with her own.

“She died when I was 9.” Belle confessed, “at least that’s what my father told me, what the police said was likely, but no one could say what happened to her. One minute she was here, and the next she was gone. She vanished just like the pages she cut out. She was gone before I could tell her I loved her. I mean, I know she knew I loved her, but my only regret was that my  last words to her were just….’ _can you buy me milk tomorrow?_ ’“

Belle finally looked up at Rumplestiltskin, who kept his eyes firmly focused on the road ahead. So focused, Belle thought, that he didn’t even realised a tear escaped his steely glare.

“For a long time, all I wanted to was to erase those words- like our pages. So that every time I thought of the last time I saw her I’d tell her something different. All the reasons i’d be thankful for what she taught me, or that i’d be okay without her, or what I regretted not telling her.”

Rumplestiltskin halted in his path, and turned to face Belle.

“What do you regret not saying to her?” The mask he had worn on their first encounter seemed to crumble at the edges, Belle beginning to suspect her words had more of an impact on him than she knew.

“That I was sorry, for all the bad memories I gave her. Even if after years and years they meant nothing, that I couldn’t be everything she wanted.” Belle’s voice broke, she’d never told anyone what she regretted about her mother. Not even her father. She wiped her eyes and burning cheeks with her sleeve before looking back to Rumplestiltskin.

“I’d give anything to know what really happened to her, to read that last page.” Belle said, and after gazing at her for a spell, Rumplestiltskin opened his mouth and seemed to struggle with what to say.

“What if...there was a way to remember?”

“How?”

Rumplestiltskin struggled to recompose himself, the cracks on the side of his marks so close to shattering Belle felt she was watching him self-destruct.

“There’s a place in here, a cave that contains magical stones collected by the Goblin King, that contain memories and return missing ones to you.”

Belle was hit by a wave of empathy and understanding. That was what he needed her help to acquire, and why they were headed where they were, why he understood Belle’s story so well. It was why Rumplestiltskin was so guarded and closed off, and had built a wall around his grief.  

“You lost someone too didn’t you? Someone close….” Belle prompted, and Rumplestiltskin looked away from her.

“Very close,” he uttered, before he spun on his toes and walked forward.

“So the stones…” Belle trailed after him hot on his heels, not willing to let him close the doors onto the mystery that was Rumplestiltskin.

“There was a time the pain of remembering was too much, and I took out the last page too,” he said with a  sad smile, and she returned it with understanding.  

“I placed the memories into the stones, so that they were still with me, but no longer haunting me. The Goblin King knew what those stones contained, and took them to force my hand. Now...I’m going to break their hand.” His voice had started soft and caring, and by the end had turned into a vicious and vengeful snarl.

“Why would they want to do that to you? Why would the Goblin King want to play games with you?” Belle questioned.

“Because we have played these games for a very, very long time. But they stopped playing by the rules, and so they must pay.”

Belle knew the anger and hostility was driven by his pain, pain she couldn’t even begin to imagine.  She danced out in front of him to stop him in his path, and did the only thing she knew how to comfort someone when they were in pain.

Hesitantly, Belle wrapped her arms around his rigid stance, holding him and laid her head on his chest- giving him as much of her as possible. She wanted to remind him with every part of herself that he wasn’t alone. Rumplestiltskin was not a monster like she thought, hardship and loss had made him this way.

After a long few moments, she unwrapped her arms from him and smiled encouragingly to him, but he seemed seemed entirely frozen by the sudden act of kindness.  That’s when she turned and kept walking.

Sure enough, Belle heard his footsteps behind her after a few seconds.

 

 

The sun began to set again quicker than Belle realised. It was 11:49. Rumplestiltskin became distracted building a fire, seemingly taking Belle’s outburst of last night to heart about magicking their way through simple tasks. She set out to find food. Returning with berries, and a dark purple plant with leaves that almost shimmered in the firelight that she thought could turn into tea.

Rumplestiltskin ate half the berries and accepted Belle’s makeshift tea, sipping without glancing at it. The leaves had turned the water into a substance that resembled stars on a night sky, which Belle thought made it look rather lovely, and tasted delicious. She downed a whole cup in one sitting, and reached to pour herself a second when she noticed Rumplestiltskin take a sip, and his expression turned sour. He looked down at the cup, and before Belle could ask what was wrong, he flung the cup and its contents into the fire.

“What is it?”

“What did you make this tea with?” he rushed over to her urgently with a manic look on his face.

“It was a plant I found, the leaves were-”

“-black??” Rumplestiltskin finished and Belle nodded frantically, noting this was the first time she had seen-quote, possibly the first time anyone had seen- the Dark One look terrified.

“It’s nightroot.” he said with dread. “It’s not a herb it’s a spell ingredient.” Oh no. “It makes you see your….” Rumplestiltskin’s eye suddenly caught sight of something behind Belle, that made his eyes glaze over as if he was seeing a ghost.

Belle moved to find what he saw behind her, when she heard snaps of leaves and twigs emerging from the forest in front of her. A figure was slowly coming into view of the clearing where they had made camp, and as they moved closer into the light of the fire, Belle felt her heart racing in her chest.

“... _your worst fear_ s,” Rumplestiltskin finished.  
  
Belle could barely hear him as she realised who was standing next to the fire, staring at her with familiar brown eyes.

“Mother?”


	5. Fighting Fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The duo must confront their greatest fears after ingesting nightroot.

Belle had one photo of her mother tucked safely into her book inside her satchel, laying forgotten by the fire. It was the last picture taken of Collette French, by Maurice French, reading a young Belle a book as they sat outside under a tree. It was Belle’s favourite because it was how she remembered her mother, with a warm smile and a book in her hands, and looking at Belle with so much love.  Belle could almost still picture her kind eyes.

The Collette French in front of Belle, still held a book in her hands, but looked at Belle as though she were a stranger, and her graceful smile replaced by a stone cold glare.

“What are you doing here?” Her mother’s voice felt like shard of glass piercing through Belle, with such ferocity and hostility it made her falter and stumble, almost losing her footing.

This couldn’t be her mother, her mother was the kindest person she’d ever known, she had never scolded Belle even for not brushing her teeth.

“You are not supposed to be here, Belle. This isn’t your world, you don’t belong here,” Collette spat out from across the fire.

“I- I have to be here. I have to save Baden.”

“Why? You’ve never cared about saving others before, you didn’t care about saving me- your own mother!”

“I would have saved you, it-it wasn’t my fa-”

“It _was_ your fault Belle, don’t you remember?” Collette hissed, before she turned her attention to running her fingers along the edges of the book, Belle’s book.

“I….I don’t remember what happened to you,” Belle tried to explain as Collette knelt beside the fire.

“And you never thought to consider why you don’t remember? That you blocked out the memory because what you did was so horrible?”

Belle felt as though the air was being sucked out of her lungs, and that she was drowning. Her heart was racing in her chest and ringing in her ears, her eyes couldn’t focus on anything but her mother’s hate-filled eyes upon her, and the book in her hands. Collette stood up, and in one swift motion, threw their cherished book into the flames.

Belle’s knees buckled from beneath her, and met the cold, hard ground with a sharp thud that sent pain through her legs. She screamed out in pain, but not for herself, for the book. The book had been the only lifeline to her mother, and now it’d been destroyed by her.

Collette walked over and leaned down to Belle’s broken and crumpled form, and whispered into her ear, “You are responsible for my death, Belle. You are the reason I am gone, and you will be the reason that boy dies too. Everyone around you dies, my darling. Including that imp you think is a man. If you are so foolish to believe he can help you on your mission, you are just as foolish as everyone thinks you are.”

Belle felt the woman that was meant to be her mother leave her side, and heard each of her trailing footsteps as she marched off into nothingness. Belle could do nothing but crumple to her side and cry.

The glass shards inside her seem to pierce every nerve they could find, each wave of pain feeling more intense than the one before. It felt like dying.

Every hint of guilt and sorrow that had been hiding in dark corners of her mind since her mother disappeared had been brought bubbling to the surface, showing Belle every part of herself that she pretended didn’t exist.  It reminded her of everything she wasn’t. She wasn’t a hero, she wasn’t brave or daring. She was a wreck who ran away into a book rather than deal with reality. She’d pulled an innocent young boy with her, and asked a broken man with his own demons to help her, and Belle probably cost them both their lives from her own stupidity.

A strong gust of wind blew into the clearing and snuffed out the fire, and Belle froze mid-sob.  After a beat, she slowly rose from the ground. The world around her was quiet and still, and her mind felt clouded yet sharp like waking up from a dream, the most vivid and real dream. She raced over to her satchel, and pulled out the book that had met its charred end only moments before. The book was unharmed, it had never even left its safekeeping.

What she’d seen wasn’t real.  Her mother hadn’t been real, neither were the things she said. It had all been a trick. Belle remembered the way Rumplestiltskin had reacted when he saw the tea she had made, it had been the plant that caused what she had seen. Nightroot.

Belle was trembling so terribly it took her several minutes to regain her courage and find the strength to stand and shake the leaves and dirt off her. Once her breathing had steadied, she realised she was alone, and Rumplestiltskin had vanished- chased away by his own fears taunting him. Belle was met with a new panic. If she had only just been able to survive battling her own, how was he going to survive it? She took off with a run, screaming his name as she went.

 

After running for several minutes, she found him dangerously near the edge of a cliff, clawing at his head and muttering nonsense. She cautiously approached him, until he caught sight of her.

“What are you doing here!?”  He screamed, but grabbed his head once again as an invisible pain ripped through him.

“I came to help you, I know what’s going on…”Belle tried to explain, but Rumple recoiled at the sound of her voice.

“You’re not real! You’re not real!” he repeated, and kept pacing with his hand pressed to his temple, his eyes closed tight and grimacing.

“I’m real, Rumplestiltskin. It’s me, Belle, remember?”

“You left me! You abandoned me, you are a coward! I’m nothing like you!” he continued to scream at her, but she was sure he was seeing someone else: his greatest fear. But who was he seeing?

“Rumple, it’s okay! It’s not real!

“I TRIED TO SAVE HIM, I TRIED TO FIX IT. IT WASN’T MY FAULT, STOP SAYING IT WAS MY FAULT!” Belle tried to grab hold of him and steady him, but he pulled away instantly at her touch and towards the cliff’s edge. She screamed out, and lunged forward to stop him from toppling over the edge, the ground beneath his feet crumbled at the pressure and Belle pulled him away faster.

She fell backwards and Rumple along with her, landing heavily on her side.

The wind was knocked out of her lungs, and another deeper pain lingered in her wrist that broke their fall, but she ignored the pain and helped Rumple, who was still violently pulling at his own hair and screaming, sit up.

“It was my fault, I abandoned him. I am a coward, just like Malcolm,” he cried, and Belle pulled her hands away from his face and wrapped her own in his.

“You’re not a coward, Rumple. It’s not real, whatever you’re seeing. It’s not real. I know you can hear me, just listen to my voice,” she implored, and put her uninjured hand on his cheek, wet with hot tears.

As Belle tried to hush his cries, he began to calm at the sound her voice.

When he finally opened his eyes to look into hers, his nightmare ended, but its repercussions were not.

“It was real, and it was my fault Belle. He was my happy ending, my chance to be a better man, and now he’s gone. I’ll never get the chance to redeem myself, or tell him I’m sorry. _I’m sorry, Baelfire! I’m so sorry..._ ” He fell into Belle’s shoulder, and she struggled to hold him up with the pain in her side. She called out his name, but Rumple just slumped to the ground, mumbling apologies to someone Belle couldn’t see.

Rumplestiltskin eventually calmed down, no longer fretting or fighting off imaginary demons, but Belle didn’t have the heart nor the strength to move him back to their campsite. The escapade with the nightroot had drained them both, Rumplestiltskin more so than her. Whatever pain from his past that he had encountered was such that Belle couldnt imagine how he he’d been able face his fears like that. The dark version of her mother was terrifying, and the way she’d looked at her with such hatred was still burned into the back of Belle’s mind.

After a while, Belle tried to convince Rumple to get up and walk back with her to the fire, but his eyes only closed and his face relaxed. She resigned to collecting their belongings and moving the campsite to him on the cliffside. Belle devised waking Rumplestiltskin wouldn’t be in anyone’s best interest, and maybe pressing pause on their journey until they were both better physically and mentally wasn’t such a bad idea.

Rumplestiltskin stirred, and started to try and say something as Belle rushed over to his side.

“Hey, hey it’s okay. You’re okay.” Belle hushed, and Rumple relaxed at the sound of her without opening his eyes.

“Belle…” he breathed, and let his head drop back to the ground, Belle took his hand and held it tightly.

“It’s alright, it wasn’t real. I’m here, just rest,” she whispered back to him until he drifted away again.

Belle tried to pull away, and found Rumple’s hand still clutching hers. She couldn’t find in her heart to take her hand away, and risk waking him up. Also, without a fire, and even with her cloak the night was growing cold and Rumple had nothing to protect him.

Belle pulled her cloak out from around to cover Rumplestiltskin and laid down by his side, her head resting on his chest. She hoped he wouldn’t mind this sudden intimacy, but tonight they needed each other. She would protect the both of them.

 

Come morning, Belle awoke first to a dimly lit sunrise. She snuck a sneaking glance up to Rumple’s face and was relieved to see he was still asleep. She wasn’t sure how she’d be able to explain why she decided to snuggle with him while he was unconscious. Belle unclasped her cloak and left it sprawled across Rumple as she searched for food. When she returned, her cloak was folded neatly on the ground and Rumplestiltskin was standing, staring out from the cliff.

Belle joined him, and they watched the sun rise over the mountains at the horizon of the Infinite Forest. For a mystical forest land that was meant to capture people in here forever, it was beautiful.

After a while she offered some berries to Rumple, who still seemed rattled from their battles last night. She didn’t know what to say to comfort him, and hoped her presence would be enough until he was ready to open up to her.

“Baelfire was his name,” he spoke softly, and Belle broke her gaze at the sunrise.

“My son,” Rumplestiltskin explained further, ”His name was Baelfire.”

“It’s a lovely name.” Belle smiled, encouraging Rumple to continue. She watched him take a deep sigh, as if considering if she should let her in this far.

“He died, because of my selfish actions, because of what I became.” He flourished a hand up and down himself, with a slight grimace.

“Who was it you said you were nothing like? Who’s Malcolm?” Belle asked.

“My father, a cowardly drunk who was barely responsible enough for himself let alone me,” Rumplestiltskin said.

“What happened to your son?”

“...I was a coward, for different reasons than my father. I thought I needed power to protect Baelfire, to keep him safe. But power was the very reason he was in danger. I couldn’t see that, all I could think about was power, and more power. And it cost me...the most precious thing in my life, my boy. Bae...” Rumplestiltskin lowered his head and closed his eyes, and Belle reached out to take his hand.

She almost commented how strange it was that the nickname was just like Baden’s, until she decided against it. It was a pretty common nickname, and this wasn’t the time.

“He knew you loved him, that you wanted to protect him, that you would have done anything for him. That doesn’t make you a coward Rumplestiltskin...it makes you a hero,” Belle told him.

The sun began to spill across the trees below them as another day began, and Rumplestiltskin smiled as the sun finally reached them.

With their hands clasped together, Belle leaned further into him, waiting for him to recoil again as he so often did, away from her, away from the warmth of others. He had been so wrapped up in his grief and darkness, that he had forgotten the most powerful way to protect someone was through love.

Belle slowly, and as soft as a feather brushed her lips across his, dancing around the full impact of a kiss until Rumple crossed the remaining distance. It was gentle, sweet, but so full of the excitement of possibilities it felt like electricity running through her veins. She wanted nothing more in that moment but to kiss him forever, and never let his lips leave hers. She supposed it was a good thing he paused to run a finger along her lips fondly, otherwise she might never have stopped.

The lingering effects of their kiss were like aftershocks, constantly reliving the ecstasy of kissing him. Rumple muttered something about packing up their things and heading on, and Belle nodded automatically, her mind still coming back on.

He was almost out of earshot, when Belle looked up from her lap as a question formed in her mind.

“You were awake before me...weren't you?”  

Rumplestiltskin turned halfway to face her, and gave her a loving smile.

“I was awake as soon as you fell asleep.” He confessed, before he ventured back through the trees to their campsite. 


	6. Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle and Rumple find the cave of stones, and recover their memories. Belle finally learns what happened to her mother, with an unexpected result. Rumple learns that his memories of losing his son were not what the Goblin King led him to believe. Belle encounters the Goblin King for the first time.

 

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Really sure?”

“Belle, it’s just a cave, it’s really not life or death.”

“It’s called _Dark Hollow_. That sounds pretty morbid to me.”

Belle stood at the mouth of a dark and mysterious cave that, quote, accurately lived up to it’s name, while Rumplestiltskin watched from afar and did his best to stifle his amusement at her hesitation.

“And why can’t you just magic us in there? Or magic the stones out?” she heard Rumplestiltskin shift from his position and walk to stand beside her as she kept her eyes focused on the dark curtain in front of her.

“I cannot enter, The Goblin King saw fit to that. And I can’t summon the stones out either, I can only summon something if I know what it looks like, or where it is. This is something you must do alone, Belle.”

Rumple stepped out and walked to stand between Belle and and the black abyss, taking her hands gently and holding them up between them.

“I’m asking you to do this not just for you Belle, but for me...for both of us.” At those words Belle looked up from their interconnected hands and into his strangely comforting eyes. Perhaps she had grown used to their peculiar glare, or was it that she finally saw the man beneath them?  

“I’m putting my faith in you, trust me when I say as long as you wear that cloak, no harm will come to you in that cave. Even though I can’t follow you in there….it will protect you.”

His voice no longer sounded like the impish devil she had met on the road and offered her a deal, and his words rung with more heart and meaning than ever before. Of course Belle trusted him,  she trusted him with her life. Surely he must know he could trust her too.

Belle nodded, and he gave her an encouraging smile before Belle leaned in and kissed him quickly on the cheek, Rumple running an affectionate finger along her cheek. Rumple gave her a nod goodbye before he stepped out of her way and Belle marched confidently into Dark Hollow. After a few steps into the cave, Belle looked back at Rumple’s outline watching her walk away, and after a few more steps the light from outside his shadow vanished- and Belle was submerged into the darkness.

Belle fumbled to light the torch Rumplestiltskin had given her, but as she turned a corner, the cave provided guidance for her. Perhaps it was her eyes playing tricks on her in the dark, but soon enough the cave was lighted by glowing red torches lining its walls. The cave wounded around and Belle travelled deep inside until there was a clearing.

It was like a treasure cave from a fantasy book, a vast and grand space with high reaching walls of jutting stone that could house a dragon protecting its collection of gold. Instead it was mostly empty, aside from one glowing corner on the far side of the cave that illuminated the empty space. Belle couldn’t make out what it was, and as she approached, she realised her path was blocked by a gaping crevice in the floor.

It was too deep and too wide to jump across, she had to find another way to make it across. There were no tools or items within the cave to make a way across, and Belle groaned with dread when it became apparent the only way to make it across was to scale the wall of the cave at the edge of the crevice.

The rocks that jutted out from the base of the wall seemed sturdy enough once they accepted Belle’s weight pressing on them, but Belle hesitated at the thought of them giving out from underneath her halfway across. She took 3 deep breaths to prepare herself, but more to vanquish the fears inside her of falling into the deep dark nothingness below her.

She needed to be brave, to do what heroes do and find courage to complete her task. Rumple waited outside and was counting on her to retrieve something so precious to him. Bae was counting on her to come find him, and she could only do that with Rumple’s help. She needed to do this for herself, for the answers of what happened to her mother that she’d never found.

One step after another, Belle guided her feet along the narrow and tricky pathway of jutting stones, careful not to rush but not to dawdle and put unneeded wait on the rock. One crumbly stone beneath her right foot gave out, and she lunged out to the wall for something to grab onto before she lost her balance.

At the last stepping stone, Belle lunged forward to leap to the stable ground on the other side and landed on her feet, proud at her achievement and relieved at not dying. She adjusted the fastening of her cloak at her chest and marched onwards towards the light that surely held the memory stones.

As she passed a corner, Belle proved herself correct and found a  large chamber carved out in the walls- lined head to toe  with cavities that held glass jars. Each jar held a single, glowing blue stone that seemed to pulsate light. Not a single jar was labelled, and could belong to anybody from the Enchanted Forest to Brooklyn. How was she ever going to find her own stone let alone Rumplestiltskins?

When she moved closer to the stones, and reached out to touch the glass jars, the lights inside them dimmed the closer she got. Belle walked along the wall, and watched as each stone reacted the same way, until near halfway down the wall, one started to glow brighter than before. She grinned eagerly and rushed to open the jar, cupping the tiny stone in her hand. When she closed her fingers around it and closed her eyes, she saw flashes of memories fill her sight. It took a moment for her to focus on the images, until they came into perfect clarity.

A newborn baby wrapped in a woolen blanket. A chubby baby with soft brown curls taking its first steps, uttering its first words. Belle didn’t recognise the boy and opened her eyes. Rumplestiltskin. It was the memories of his son. The ones he so desired to be reunited with. Without hesitation, Belle placed the stone safely into her satchel, and carried on scanning the jars for her own stone.

A second one glowed at her arrival not much after her first discovery. As she picked up the stone, Belle knew it was hers without even taking a peek inside its magic. Placing it with Rumple’s, she triumphantly turned back to the exit to make her way back to Rumple. She did it. She succeeded! She got what they needed, and now finally they would have closure for their lost ones. And they could finally get to Bae.

At the thought of Bae filling Belle’s mind, suddenly another stone began to stream its light into the corner of Belle’s eye. It was a smaller stone than the others, but shone twice as bright. Whose could it be? Belle dipped her hand and pulled out the stone, that was no bigger than a quarter. She closed her eyes curiously, and only two images came rushing into her vision.

One was of a woman, a terrifying woman with green scaly skin and red hair, whose vindictive laugh sent chills down Belle’s spine. The other was of a man hobbling into sight with a wooden cane, with soft brown hair that hung around his face, and familiar warm brown eyes. Though it was of a simple peasant man, who smiled with affection for whoevers memories these were, there was no denying who this memory showed. Rumplestiltskin.

Belle blinked madly to return her sight to the cave filled with jars to digest what she had seen. A human Rumple. The memories….whose were they??? The answer danced at the back of her mind, but Belle hushed it quickly. No, it couldn’t be. No, we shouldn’t tell Rumple, we should wait until we’re sure. Belle added the stone to her collection, and as she closed the buckle on her bag- Belle heard the echo of footsteps outside in the cave. Belle stepped out of the room of stones with a smirk.

“I thought you said you couldn’t come in here.” Belle said confidently, and as she emerged, Belle expect to see a grinning Rumplestiltskin awaiting outside with a witty line about making him wait so long. Only when she came into view it was Rumple, it was the woman with the evil laugh and green skin.

“Not who you were expecting dear?” The woman stared at Belle with a smile, that seemed anything but nice. It was the woman from the memory, and if Belle could hazard a guess, the one who was collecting all these stones. That would mean….

“You….You’re the one that has Baden?” The woman let out a short chuckle.

“Indeed I am, not a particularly interesting brat I might add.”

“That means, _you’re_ the Goblin King!?” Belle exclaimed.

“To be truthful I wasn’t particularly fond of that title.” She pouted, “But it serves its purpose, as do the army of goblins, trolls and alike it commands. You can call me Zelena. I must admit...I am surprised you were brave enough to come here, who would have thought Rumplestiltskin would find someone so...nice to do his dirty work.”

“You took his son from him, you killed him.” Belle accused, and Zelena barely flinched.

“In a manner of speaking, I needed to break Rumplestiltskin beyond repair. It seemed to do the trick until you came along.” Belle tried to itch further away from her, feeling like a deer trapped in a lion’s den.

“Why did you take Baden? Why did you bring us here into this world?” Belle questioned, and Zelena let off another ridiculous pout.

“Well I can’t reveal all my plans, where’s the fun in that? When I can just as easily kill you.” Zelena curled her hand menacingly and fire erupted from her fingertips. Before Belle could run for cover, she launched the fireball in Belle’s direction. Belle screamed as she felt the heat of the flames, but it did not burn her skin or her clothes in the slightest. Zelena set another flaming ball of magic and it simply bounced off Belle’s golden cloak like a speck of dust. Rumple was right, his cloak would protect her when he could not. Belle ran.

She made it as far as the edge of the crevice when Zelena appeared in a puff of green smoke in front of her.

“You can’t escape me dear, there’s nowhere to go.” Zelena taunted. “No one to run to. Rumplestiltskin is probably long gone by now, vanished at the first hint of trouble.”

“You’re wrong, he wouldn’t leave me.” Belle defied, only making Zelena laugh harder.

“Are you foolish enough to believe he actually cares for you? Rumplestiltskin only cares about what you can give him, what you can do for him. He only has two thing he truly cares for. Power….and more power.”

“No. No he doesn’t.” Belle felt her blood boiling at every second she was trapped under this woman’s grasp, and was desperately searching for a way out of it. Zelena went to conjure another ball of magic, this time a flaming ball of fire larger than the previous two. Belle’s coat may be magically enhanced, but she doubted it could protect her from this.

At the split second Zelena hurled the fire towards Belle, she ducked behind a fracturing stone column, that met the flames instead of Belle. It shattered at its touch, and the stones fell apart and hurtled into the direction of an unexpecting Zelena. She was buried by the avalanche of rock, her magic and ferocity temporarily subdued and giving Belle the opportunity to flee. Belle made it back across the crevice, each stepping stone falling down behind her, and she ran as fast as her feet could carry her back towards the exit.

She was back in the light before she knew it, and running straight into Rumple’s arms.

“Belle? What happened? Are you alright?”

“It-It was her, she was in there. Zelena.” Belle gasped between breaths, Rumple froze.

“Did she hurt you?”

“N-No. The cloak, your cloak stopped her. Rumple we need to get out of here before she comes back.” Belle pleaded, looking up into his eyes. He nodded frantically, keeping one hand firmly wrapped around Belle and the other whisking them away to safety through the red smoke.

They materialised back where they had camped the night before by the cliff’s edge, miles from the cave and Zelena’s rage. Belle sank onto the log with a vacant expression on her face, Rumple joining her almost immediately.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Belle turned and looked at him, his face filled with such sincerity and concern it made her heart hurt. Zelena had been wrong. Rumplestiltskin cared about more than just power.

“I’m fine.” she smiled back, and pulled out two stones from her bag.

“You found it.” He gushed, his eyes fixed on the stones. Belle offered his to Rumple, but he pushed her hand back and instead picked up Belle’s.

“You’ve waited long enough for your answers. You first.” Rumple insisted. Belle nodded, and took the stone from Rumple.

After all this time of waiting and searching for answers, Belle was finally going to learn what had happened to her mother than night she vanished. All the stories she had concocted, tried to justify or explain, and now one of them would be proven right. Belle was scared, to finally be facing the truth she had fought so hard to find. Rumple took her free hand, squeezed it gently, and Belle closed her eyes.

That night, Belle had been asleep in her bed, her mother had read her Labyrinth before she fell asleep, as they had done every night and the night before. Belle’s copy of Labyrinth, the one with the missing page at the end because Belle hated endings lay on her bedside table. Collette had another copy, a version with all its pages and no wearings on its pages, in the bookcase in their study.

Belle was woken up by something falling and cluttering to the ground with a muffled bang outside her room; and saw a light shining through her bedroom door from down the hall. It was coming from the study. Belle creaked open the study door, and saw her mother standing in the middle of a chaotic scene. Wind was whirling around the room like a vortex, sending papers flying everywhere.

A bright, yellow swirling light was in the centre of the room, and facing it was Collette. Belle called out to her mother, who turned around and smiled at Belle, she was holding her copy of Labyrinth. Above the howling of the wind, Collette called out to her daughter “Be brave, my darling Belle” before she jumped into the yellow light and vanished.  Belle remembered the wind increasing, and being blown backwards and hitting her head on the bookcase, then nothing.

Belle opened her eyes, and could feel Rumplestiltskin’s hand again, and could see the fire burning in front of them, and could feel the tears running down her cheeks.

“I know what happened to my mother.” she cried in shock, before turning to look at Rumple.

“She isn’t dead, she’s alive. She went through a portal like me.” Belle sobbed harder and fell into Rumple’s chest, who held her tightly and waited until every tear was exhausted from Belle. Years of pent up emotion took awhile to expel. Of all the explanations it could have been, Belle hadn’t considered the most obvious. Collette had followed her love for books, only followed it too far. It was an answer, however puzzling it woul prove to be now, but an answer.

Finally, Belle felt more herself and accepted a silk handkerchief Rumple conjured.

“Your turn.” she joked, and offered Rumple the other stone. He rolled the stone on his hand in hesitation for some time, before closing his hand around it and closing his eyes. Belle watched his reaction intently, for any hint of what he was remembering. First, his face softened and smiled, and Belle mirrored his reaction as she remembered the tiny glimpse she’d caught of his son.

Belle stole a glance back to her bag that still sheltered the third stone, the mystery stone. Belle decided once Rumple had taken his time in regaining his stolen memories she would ask him whose memories they were, until she saw Rumple’s face change. It had morphed from happiness to pain, and then to shock, then anger, then outrage. His eyes flew open, and he bolted off his seat and starting pacing around the fire. Belle stayed glued to her seat.

“What is it? What happened??”

“She lied.” He said through gritted teeth.

“Who lied?”

“Zelena! She gave me false memories before! But these were the real ones! Of what really happened to him!”

“What happened? to who?”

“To Baelfire! My son! I remember her killing him.” Rumplestiltskin rushed up to Belle, with a pleading look on his face as though he was asking her to take away his pain. “I remember the moment my son died, Belle! But- now I know it wasn’t real. _She made me think he was dead so I wouldn’t look for him. Zelena took my son!_ ”  

“Baelfire...he’s alive??” Belle gasped and looked down to her bag, the stone. The two memories. Zelena and Rumple as a human. It was Baelfire’s memories. 


	7. The Vines That Bind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle and Rumple encounter an enchanted snare of vines that are designed to strangle those with hidden regrets. Rumple asks what Baden is like, Belle realises Baden and Rumplestiltskin’s lost son may be the same person, and still keeps her secret of the third stone she found.

 

Now more than ever, Rumple was determined to accompany Belle to rescue Baden from the Goblin King. Zelena, Belle kept reminding herself. To rescue him from Zelena, the very same woman who had ripped Rumplestiltskin’s son from him. What she had done with him, was an entirely other question.

As they journeyed to the centre of the Infinite Forest, where Zelena’s fortress lay, Belle felt her hand twitching at the side of her bag that held the tiny, blue stone. There was no doubt in her mind it was Baelfire’s, and by all rights Rumplestiltskin should have it and know what memories it contains, But Belle couldn’t bring herself to give it to him. Perhaps she hadn’t killed Baelfire, but what if the truth was worse? What if giving Rumple the stone only caused more pain. What if it revealed something more painful than what had been planted in his brain before? She couldn’t bear to cause him pain, and so she kept her lips tight about her discovery.

Rumple seemed distracted on their latest trek, barely speaking a word unless prompted, and Belle couldn’t blame him. He seemed to be putting on a brave face for Belle, but she knew beneath his mask hid what he was really feeling. Rumplestiltskin always kept his cards close to his chest, keeping everyone around him on their toes and never able to predict his next move.

For awhile he had let that guard down with her, letting her see the man behind the beast, now there was only the beast. Walking beside her, Belle could almost feel his desire to leave her behind and go after Zelena himself, and she wanted to believe whatever connection they had was what was keeping him beside her. That love was stronger than his hatred.

After several hours of silence, they found a stream to replenish their water supplies, and Belle splashed a handful on the back of her neck and arms to try and wash herself. Rumple had disappeared  out of her eyeline, perhaps to give her privacy, and Belle caught herself feeling strangely alone without him by her side. She hadn’t even considered what she would do once they rescued Bae.

Could Rumple even get them home? Did she even want to go back home? Ever since finding find what had happened to her mother, Belle felt her indecision growing at returning back home, when it barely even felt like home now. In the real world, she had been gone less than half an hour, but time had passed in days and days in this world.

The Enchanted Forest felt more real than her bed at home, and returning back there felt wrong. Belle shook her head and tried to scatter the growing thoughts from her mind. No, she couldn’t stay here, she had a duty to get Bae back where he belonged. Rumplestiltskin emerged from the trees carrying some form of fruit, and Belle smiled at his return. He gave her a half smile, still looking lost in his anger, but trying to not let Belle see it. She had to go back...no matter what she felt.

Rumple sat a little ways down the stream from Belle as they ate quietly together. Belle occasionally stole a glance to him and caught him staring at her with an odd look. As if he was contemplating asking her something but deciding against it. Once the fruit was gone, Rumple errantly drew in the sand with a stick, before looking up to Belle who waited patiently.

“What is he like, the boy you’re trying to save? You never speak of him.” Belle was taken aback by the amount of heart in his question, perhaps he wasn’t as troubled and distant as he was trying to be.

“I don’t really know much about him.” Belle said honestly, “He was given to me to look after just for the night, before they found him a more permanent home. I was only supposed to be responsible for him for one night, and well...you see how well that turned out.” Belle joked and a slight chuckle escaped Rumplestiltskin.

“So this is why you’re saving him? Because you feel responsible for him?”

“Of course. And….I don’t know. He was incredibly kind, and brave despite whatever had happened to him to make him so lost and alone. When I was looking after Baden, I felt happy with him, reading with him and playing silly games. He’s a really special boy,” Belle smiled fondly, “What I just don’t get is why Zelena was after him. Why would she want him here?”

“Perhaps he’s valuable in some way.” Rumple pondered.

“Valuable for what? He’s just a little kid, he doesn’t even remember….”

“Belle? Belle?”

For a moment, time seemed to stand still, and Belle stared at Rumple in front of her, looking at her with a confused expression as she remembered what he had looked like in the memory. In Baelfire’s memories. Soft, messy brown hair, deep brown eyes and a narrow nose. Baden had soft brown hair, and deep brown eyes with the same cheeky grin Rumplestiltskin often gave Belle.

Baden had no memories, Belle had a stone filled with Baelfire’s lost memories. Rumplestiltskin called his son Bae. The social workers had assumed his Bae was Baden because all he could remember, all he responded to….was Bae. It couldn’t be possible. What were the chances of it being the same boy? That she would be entrusted with him for one night, that Zelena would find him and send them both through the portal, and that Belle would stumble into none other than his father…

“Belle what’s wrong?” Rumple’s growing concern brought Belle back, and she quickly rushed to recompose her face.

“Nothing, no, it’s nothing.” Belle tried to say, and hurried to her feet and to gather her things, “We should get going, it’s getting dark.” Rumplestiltskin followed behind her, and didn’t ask her again about Baden. Belle fumbled through her bag to pick up the stone and held in front of her.

There was still a good chance she was wrong about what she believed, coincidences could simply just be coincidences. But fate was another thing entirely at work. All that was something to decide once they found Bae again, and sure enough Belle would know for certain once Rumple saw Baden which was the truth as they finally reached the centre of the Infinite Forest.   

Zelena’s castle was not surrounded by an army of guards or a gigantic stone wall as Belle had expected once they had arrived. Instead, there was a tangled mess of vines that wrapped around the perimeter of her castle, some strands of it wider than her own body. There didn’t seem to be a way around it, the vines entirely blocked their way to the castle. To saving Bae.

“Is it enchanted?”

“Indeed. It is certainly no ordinary garden decoration.” Rumple replied shortly. Belle was growing annoyed at his resignation. They did not come this far to be defeated by a weed.

Belle yanked off her cloak and shoved it inside her bag, ignoring Rumple’s objections and pulled a dagger the size of her hand from the belt around her waist.

“Well. If we can’t go around it, we’ll go through it.” She lunged at the weave of vines, finding the thickest vein and stabbing it with the sharp point of the dagger.

“BELLE NO!” As if it reacted to the pain, the vine unravelled and charged towards Belle, immediately wrapping around her wrist and twirling upwards, her knife sent clattering to the ground out of sight. She screamed and tried to pull away, but it only entwined itself around her faster. Rumplestiltskin ran to her aid, only to meet the same fate as another arm of the vine attacked Rumple and wrapped itself around his entire body like a Boa Constrictor. As the vines wrapped around her neck, Belle could no longer see Rumple, but could hear his grunts of frustration. The more Belle tried to resist, the more vines surrounded her, eventually she stopped struggling and sighed in defeat.

“Why didn’t you say that was going to happen??”

“Well it wouldn’t have happened if you just kept the cloak on!” Rumple spat back as he tried to magic his way out the vines, until two sprouts shot off and covered his hands, disarming him and rendering him powerless.  

“What are we going to do now? Wait until Zelena’s guards finds us?”

“She doesn’t need guards, the vine is the guard. It’s enchanted like I told you.”

“Enchanted how? By strangling us to death?”

“In a manner of speaking, the enchantment is designed to strangle those with hidden regrets. It feeds off it.” Belle tried to turn her head to look at Rumple, and the vines began to wrap tighter until she stopped moving and could breathe again.

“How do we get out of here?” Belle asked, already fearing the answer.

“We have to confess our regrets.” Rumplestiltskin said bitterly, Belle swallowed hard. She was certain they both had enough regrets and lies on their conscience that neither will be willing to admit readily.   

“I already said what I regret, Rumple, what I regretted about my mother.” Belle tried to say steadily, and she didn’t need to see Rumplestiltskin to know what his expression was.

“Not everything.” he said quietly, and he was right. Belle knew it. There was something she was holding back from realising, from accepting the facts with what she knew now. She didn’t want to recognise it, because that would mean it would come true, and that terrified her. So did being strangled to death by vines while Bae was in danger. She had to say it, or they would never get out of here.

“I always knew she wasn’t dead, my mother. No matter what anyone told me, somehow I just knew she was alive.” Belle began, she knew Rumple was listening to her, but without seeing him she could pretend she was confessing into a void, and say what she felt.

“I was right, the stones showed that. She ran away to find adventure, just like I did. She ran away into her books, she’s the reason i love them so much. But now they’re also the reason she isn’t here. My mother didn’t see me grow up, and i’ll probably never see her again. I regret...I regret that I didn’t go with her that night, that she didn’t take me with her. It’s like she abandoned me for her stories.” Belle felt tears began to well up and fall across her cheeks, but her hands were still firmly tied to her sides stopping her from hiding them.

“I knew she loved me, that she wanted me to be happy, but why couldn’t she love me more than some stupid book?! I’m afraid because I spent my life devoted to books, that i’ll end up just like her and abandon everyone I care about for a chance at adventure. That isn’t who I want to be! I want to be brave for my family, I want to go on adventures with my family, not leave them with a missing page where I’m supposed to be.”

That was it wasn’t it, what she regretted the most. That she couldn’t be her mother, even though her mother had been the one she had always looked up to. Her mother could be the daring, bold adventurer in the stories they’d read, but Belle couldn’t hurt others the way she’d been hurt. It was all very well and exciting what Belle had experienced here in the Enchanted Forest, but it couldn’t last forever. Belle still had one foot in each world. Her mother had chosen wrong, but which one was the right place for Belle? The place where she ought to belong, or the one where she feels happiest? Either way, she would hurt someone, leave someone behind.

The vines had loosened their grip around Belle, but not fully released her. She was able to turn and see Rumplestiltskin again, who looked at her with sad eyes.

“Your mother wasn’t the only one who abandoned their children for what they thought they needed.” Rumple said with a lump in his throat. Belle wanted nothing more than to rip these vines apart and put her arms around him. To remind him one mistake didn’t make you a monster.

“But that’s not what I regret, Belle.” He looked up at her with fear in his eyes, as if what he was about to say would shatter what they had begun to build together. Belle began to feel the same sense of dread in the pit of her stomach.

“There are many things I regret, countless acts I have committed that have put dark marks on my heart. But none of those are what I regret the most.” Rumplestiltskin’s soft voice trailed away, and soon the snarl that rose from the back of his throat make Belle shrink away in surprise.

“What I regret. Is not _killing Zelena after she took my son from me right then and there_. To take her life like she took Baelfire from me, but not before i showed her what pain really feels like when you have lost all hope.”

At the end of his sentence, Belle watched as the vines released them and crumbled like dust, revealing a pathway to the castle. Rumplestiltskin unfroze from his position that he had been held in by the vines, and walked past Belle without looking at her. Belle watched his figure walk away into the distance, unsure whether to follow him for the first time since they had met.

When she finally found the courage to find him, Rumplestiltskin was examining an entrance into the castle, his hand illuminated by magic as it worked the locks apart.

“You didn’t really mean what you said, did you?” Belle asked, and Rumplestiltskin turned to face her slowly with a blank expression. Belle wanted to see the best in him, the part that she knew cared about her and his son. The human part, not shrouded by the darkness and evil that filled the rest of him.

“I’m a difficult man to love, Belle. Even more difficult to forgive, monsters always are. And I don’t need anything, or anyone else except my son, and taking Zelena’s life.” His words stung, and took all of Belle not to either slap him or cry.

“No. I don’t believe that. You just think that all I see is a monster, but I see the man too. There is good in you, I’ve seen it, and you can’t pretend it isn’t there.” Belle defied, and saw Rumplestiltskin’s lips tighten as he tried to bury his reaction to her words.

“Those vines may have thought that is your biggest regret, and you might think so too, but I know what really is your biggest regret.” Belle felt her blood rise and her vision blur, the full brunt of Rumple’s words finally hitting her. He wanted her to hate him? To think he was irredeemable? So be it.

“You’re a coward, Rumplestiltskin. And no matter how thick you make your skin, or how hard you try to pretend you are fearless, that won’t change.” Belle said angrily, and Rumplestiltskin leaned down until their faces were almost touching.

“Well if i’m as hopeless as you think I am... _leave. Go_. I don’t want you anymore, _dearie_. I got what I wanted, you should go find your lost boy.” Rumplestiltskin’s eyes were cold, and the light behind them was all but extinguished as Belle turned away with teary eyes.

Belle didn’t look back as she walked away to see if he broke his pretense of anger like she did. Belle made sure she was out of earshot and sight until she collapsed on the ground. Wrapping her legs and arms together and cried into her knees, Belle tried to ignore the sound of her heart breaking. She pulled the weightless coat back out of her pack, and her book and held both preciously before her. Belle knew she couldn’t sit on the ground feeling sorry for herself and Rumple forever, not when she needed to save Bae. Belle rose to her feet and swung the cloak back around her shoulders and rose the hood over her head.

A shadow appeared in front of her, and Belle breathed a sigh of relief that he had come back to find her. Belle wanted nothing more than to apologize for all the horrible things she had said, and just to find Bae, to tell him she could never hate him. The smile fell from her face when she realised it was not Rumplestiltskin rushing up to her, but a winged monster with glowing red eyes and menacing teeth. Belle screamed to no use, Rumplestiltskin couldn’t hear her. A harsh blow to her head cut off her cries for help, and her book slipped from her hands and fell abandoned behind an unconscious Belle as she was dragged into Zelena’s castle.


	8. Finding Your Way Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle finds an unlikely accomplice in helping to save Bae. As Rumple faces his greatest enemy, Belle risks everything to not let Zelena defeat them.

Belle woke lying on her back in a dirty and dark floor of a cell and a sharp shooting pain at the side of her head, and her golden cloak spattered with mud and straw. Belle sighed heavily as she realised her bag and her book were not beside her, only a wooden bowl with peculiar looking oatmeal inside.

“I wouldn’t eat that if I were you.” a small voice warned from the other side of Belle’s iron bars.

Belle flipped her head around to see a young girl with long, messy blonde hair wearing rags and a blue cloak emerge from the shadows. As she entered the light and sat crossed legged in front of Belle, she reached her arm through the bars and offered her a roll of bread. She had startling blue eyes and a kind but broken smile that made Belle tear up, a smile just like Bae’s. A smile that was merely a brave face not meant to make them feel better, but to make others feel better. No child should have to smile like that.

“I swiped it from a tray upstairs, you look like you need it.” the little girl said, and Belle accepted the food before breaking it in half.

“I think we both need it.” She offered the hal back to the girl, who snatched it back excitedly and devoured it in seconds. Belle followed suit.

With something in her stomach, and knowing she wasn’t alone, Belle’s spirits began to rise and the little girl looked at Emma curiously.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Belle, you?”

“My name’s Emma.” the girl said quickly, and Belle was hit with another wave when she saw how happy Emma was that someone was talking to her. How long had it been since someone had been nice to her.

“Why are you in Zelena’s castle? How long have you been in here?” Belle asked, and Emma shrugged in dismay.

“I don’t remember.” Emma said quietly, and Belle’s thoughts led back to Dark Hollow and the room of stones, wondering which one she passed had belonged to this brave little girl.

“Why are you here?” Emma asked, and shuffled closer to the bars that divided their cells, Belle leaned against hers and played errantly with a makeshift spoon amongst the straw. Belle’s eyes widen as she realised something.

“I’m trying to find someone, a little boy about your age with brown hair. His name is-”

“-Bae? You know Bae?” Emma’s eyes lit up.

“You know where he is?” Belle exclaimed, and Emma sat up beside her.

“Yeah! He was in the cell next to me since Zelena brought him here, before she moved me here for hitting her flying monkey Walsh with a rock.” Emma paused at the memory and gave herself a proud grin.

“Do you remember where he is? Can you take me to him?” Belle asked, and Emma nodded vigorously before she stood up and held out her hand to Belle.

“Hand me that spoon and I can get us out!” Belle handed the spoon over to Emma, who rushed over to her cell door.

“What are you doing?” Belle asked as she followed alongside, watching intently as Emma started to pull apart the wire that held together the spoon.

“It’s all about the tumblers.” Emma sang, as she began to pick the lock. Belle gushed in awe as within seconds, Emma had unlocked her prison door and raced out of the cell. Belle stood in front of her door, and Emma’s hands hesitated at its lock.

“What’s wrong?” Belle asked as she noticed the darkness running over Emma’s face. Belle knelt down and looked into Emma’s eyes, and saw her lip trembling.

“If I help you rescue Bae, you have to promise me something.” Emma said nervously.

“Of course! Anything!”

Emma bit her lip, before she looked up at Belle.

“Bae told me about where you’re from, about your other world.” Emma said, “I want you promise to take me back with you.”

Belle opened her mouth to protest that of course she wasn’t going to leave this little girl behind with no one to care for her, how could she even think that. Belle stopped herself from saying how utterly ridiculous that seemed, when she saw the sad and lost look in her eyes that told Belle as clear as day how many people had let her down before.

“I promise.” Belle swore, and Emma nodded before she unlocked Belle’s door and the two whisked away to find Bae.

Belle trailed after Emma as they rounded corner after corner of the dungeon and racing up steep stairwells until Emma froze, and held out a corner to stop Belle from barreling forward. Belle chanced a glance around the corner and saw two more of those winged monkeys guarding a locked door of a tower.

“Bae must be in there.” Belle surmised, and Emma nodded in agreement.

“How are we going to get passed them? We don’t have any weapons?” Belle looked down to Emma, who seemed to be deep in thought. Emma stared at the large, open window by the locked door, then the monkeys monkeys, then to a suit of armour behind them, and back to the monkeys. Emma’s brow furrowed.

“Emma! No! There’s no way we could carry that, let alone push those two out that window.”

Emma rolled her eyes and ran with silent, quick feet to the armour and yanked the poleaxe twice her size from its arms. Belle rushed forward to grab it before Emma accidentally killed herself.

“Think we can carry this?” Emma asked mischievously, and Belle couldn’t help but grin along with her enthusiasm. Bae would have definitely liked being next door in a cell to this girl.

They counted down to three, and Emma ran barely a millisecond after the 2, and the two of them throttled down the narrow hallway to the unsuspecting monkeys. Belle pushed will all her strength, and the two of them sent them barrelling down the side of the castle and into the night. Belle hastily pulled the window shut so they could not reenter, and Emma worked her magic at the locks once again. Belle waited impatiently for the few seconds that felt like hours for Emma to pick the lock, and glanced at the watch on her wrist she’d all but forgotten about. It was 12:15am.

Belle opened the door to the tower, an all but barren room except for a cot on the farside, that a boy with scruffy hair sat crosslegged on watching the dust on the floor.

“Bae!” Belle exclaimed in relief and raced toward him, wrapping her arms around him. “You’re okay!”

“Belle?” Bae muffled into her shoulder, and she released him as she pushed back his messy hair, “You came back for me?”

“Of course I did! You’re my responsibility.” Belle told him, and she pulled him into a tight hug once more. When she felt his arms slowly wrap round her, Belle realised she came for him for more than just because it was her job. It had been more than just a job from the second he stepped into her life.

“We should get going, Zelena probably knows we’ve escaped by now,” Emma called out from the doorway, and Belle froze.

“Zelena.” Belle realised. Zelena didn’t know that they had escaped, because she was most likely battling her greatest foe as she spoke.

“We have to find Rumplestiltskin! Come on.” Belle said hurriedly and grabbed Bae’s hand as they followed Emma back down the hallway.

“Whose Rumplestiltskin?” Bae asked, and Belle’s mouth dropped. In all her desire and excitement to find Baden, she’d forgotten she was now walking alongside Rumple’s son Baelfire.

“He’s your-he’s...Rumplestiltskin helped me find you, to save you. Now we need to save him.” Belle said as they marched through the castle. As they passed another suit of armour, Belle acquired a sword and asked Emma where Zelena might be. Emma pointed to the direction of the throne room, and Belle gave Emma and Bae strict orders to get out of the castle and to safety, that she would come get them once this was over. Belle had walked five steps before she heard the rustling of four small feet catch up to her, and sighed in defeat.

Belle did not, it turned out, need Emma’s directions to find the throne room when all she had to do was follow the echoing blasts of spells and magic bouncing off walls and the shrill, maniacal laughter of Zelena that ran through the halls like a deadly gas. They found an entrance, and Belle held a finger to her mouth to tell Bae and Emma to stay still and quiet behind her, before she snuck a glance into the grand room, and gasped at the sight.

Rumple was on his knees, the grand puppet master and Dark One bent down before the Goblin King as she now commanded his strings. Zelena was revelling in it.

“You know what I want, Rumple, you know why I did all of this. Took your boy…” Belle glanced back at Bae, who was so painfully oblivious to what was happening in the next room and who he was, and she looked back to the scene in front of her. “...caused you all this pain and torment and yet, you still cling to it. Why not just give it up? Why not give in and let me have what I want?”

“Because what you want is impossible.” Rumple snarled back at her, and Zelena’s eyes only narrowed.

“It won’t stay impossible for long, once you give me the dagger.” Belle frowned and tried to search her memories for any time Rumple had mentioned a specific dagger to her, one that could be so important to Zelena she would do all of this.

“I will never give it to you, so you might as well kill me.”

“Well that won’t help my situation would it?” Zelena implored, and leant down to yank Rumple’s chin up so he was forced to look her in the eyes.

“So then what am I to do with you….Luckily, I have just the thing that will keep you out of trouble and out of my hair while I hunt down your precious dagger.” Zelena’s hand went for her pocket, and pulled out a tiny, glowing white bean.

“A magic bean.” Emma whispered, and Belle hushed her out of fear that Zelena would hear them. Luckily, Zelena was too immersed in her own game that she didn’t notice them hiding in the shadows.

“I think what i’ll do...is put you somewhere where you won’t be any use, until I see fit to retrieve you.” Zelena purred, and Rumple jerked his face free from her grasp. “And you’ll never see your son again, or your precious Belle.”

Belle knew what was coming next, what would happen once Zelena threw that bean, Rumple would vanish into a world that she could not follow, and Zelena would win. Belle’s hand flew to her neck where the golden clasp of her cloak hung, and she knew what she must do to stop Zelena. It was time for her to be the hero.

“Stay here, and whatever you do don’t come any closer. And hide!” Belle urged Emma and Bae, who heard the severity in her voice and Belle shuffled them into a nearby closet. Then she ran towards Rumple.

Rumple was the first to see her, and Belle saw the relief wash over him, followed by dread. He held out his hands to tell Belle to go back and leave him, but she kept running. Zelena threw her arm over her head and let the bean come crashing down at Rumple’s feet. Belle was still too far away from Rumple when the magic of the bean started to ignite, and she launched herself into a slide to erase the distance. She landed in front of him, and immediately threw herself and her cloak around them both. Rumple said the coat would repel any magic it encountered, and she hoped this would work. All she could do was hold him, and hope, and pray, and believe. It was like being in the centre of a tornado, and Belle could feel gravity pulling them apart, but she just held him tighter, and he too. Belle thought above the roaring winds she heard Zelena’s gargled scream, that was sucked out of the air as soon as it had begun.

The screaming of wind and the blinding green light died down, and once Belle had mustered the courage, she pulled the cloak down so she could see the aftermath. Had they travelled to another world, was the cloak not strong enough, was she separated from Bae yet again? Belle opened her eyes, and the throne room was intact. She laughed.

“We did it!”

“No, you did it Belle.” Rumplestiltskin whispered to her, and he looked around the room.

“Where’s Zelena?”

“She...must have fallen through the portal. That means she can’t hurt us! Rumple? Rumple?” Belle turned to see his face, and saw he was no longer searching the room, and his eyes had fixed on the doorway. Belle followed his eyeline, and saw a sheepish Bae and Emma emerging and approaching Belle and Rumple in the centre of the room.

 _Oh no_. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. Belle turned back to Rumple, trying to find the words to explain an impossible situation, and Rumple’s mask break and shatter into pieces, his lip trembling and barely able to stand.

“ _Baelfire…_ ”

Belle couldn’t predict what Rumple was feeling, not in a million years. To only just learn he wasn’t dead, and to be collided with him almost immediately, and see his son look through him like a stranger.

Bae didn’t know how to react, and Belle realised how strange this must all be for him, and looked at Belle for an explanation. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what happened next.

 

 


	9. Light In The Darkness

Travelling back from Zelena’s castle proved a lot slower now Rumplestiltskin & Belle had gained two more travel companions, with shorter and legs and tired brains. The four travellers barely spoke, other than Emma asking where they were going, and eventually asking Belle for a piggyback when she grew too exhausted. Bae kept nearby Belle, but kept darting glances at Rumple as if he was trying to figure out what had happened in Zelena’s castle and what it meant. Perhaps he had an idea, and was trying to understand it.

Once they were a safe distance from Zelena’s castle and its inhabitants, they set up camp so Bae and Emma could rest until dawn. Until the sun rose, Belle could figure out what happened next.

After she had checked on Emma and Bae, who slept on thick woolen blankets Rumple conjured, she walked to awkwardly sit next to Rumple, who hadn’t taken his eyes off Bae.

“Are you okay?” Belle asked softly, and Rumplestiltskin thawed out.

“In a manner of speaking.” He said just as quietly, without looking over to her. Belle fidgeted with the edge of her cloak.

“Zelena must have sent him to my land, where there wasn’t any magic so you wouldn’t be able to find him.” Belle suggested, “And took his memories too.” And that was the irony of it too, that she had those memories that would have made this reunion so much smoother, but her bag was gone, and the stone alone with it.

Rumple didn’t say anything, and Belle wanted nothing more than to shake him out of his stance and beg him to tell her what he was thinking, but all he did was watch his son that he had thought was dead, and now wasn’t. But had no idea who he was.

“Rumple...what are we supposed to do now?” Belle tried, and Rumple lowered his head.

“I made you a promise, Belle. To get you and Baden home. I intend to keep that promise.” he said carefully.

“But...that was before you knew that Baden was Bael-”

“But you knew didn’t you?” Rumple turned to her, “You knew Baden was my son? The boy you were searching for was Baelfire.”

Belle couldn’t keep the secret anymore, and let the guilt finally rise inside her and she nodded, afraid of what Rumple’s reaction will be.

“In Dark Hollow, I found another stone and I saw the memories inside it. It was of you…”

Rumple stood up and began walking away from her, and Belle stood up too.

“I took the stone.” Belle called out, and Rumple stopped in his tracks. “But I was afraid to give it to you, that it would cause you more pain than you were already in. It was in my bag, but then I was….” Rumplestiltskin turned back to face her, with more sadness in his eyes than she had ever seen. She thought at least seeing Baelfire, being near him would bring him some form of happiness, no matter the circumstances.

He waved his hand slowly through the air, and Belle’s pack fell at her feet. Belle looked down at it in amazement and then back to Rumple. She knelt down and pulled open the fastening, retrieving the stone as if it were a fragile egg in the palm of her hand and walking to stand in front of Rumplestiltskin.

“If you give him the stone he’ll remember you, he’ll know you’re his father. He’ll remember everything.” Belle whispered, chancing a look back to Bae, who was fast asleep next to Emma.

“That’s precisely what I am afraid of.” Rumplestiltskin breathed back, and a tear ran down his scaly cheek.

“But the happiness I saw, the love I felt in those memories…”

“...were also tainted with the dark memories. The ones I gave him,” Rumple pointed to Bae. “He is better off not remembering all the pain I put him through, for him to remember the coward I am.”

“You can’t just let him go like that! He’s your son!”

“And I want what is best for him, for his best chance at happiness, and it isn’t with me.” Rumple said sadly, “he’s better off in your world, and so are you.” he reached to caress her cheek, his finger trailing down slowly before his entire hand cupped her face, and she mirror his action and ran her fingers through his hair. Rumplestiltskin lent his head down and kissed Belle deeply, as if their entire journey together had been combined in one long, lingering kiss that left her dizzy.

“I love you, Belle.” he hushed into her ear as Belle leant into him. “Both of you. Which is why you have to go back. It is your world, and this is mine.”

Rumple pushed her away gently, and handed Belle her lost book. The book she thought had been lost outside Zelena’s castle, that he knew how much meant to her, and also what it now meant for them.

“This is our last page Belle, the end of a story, and you have to let yourself go back.” he leant his forehead onto hers, and they both softly cried together for the briefest of moments.

“I don’t like endings.” she cried softly, and he pulled lightly on a curl in her hair.

“Endings serve their purpose,” Rumple repeated to her, as he had told her those long days ago.  “just like any beginning...and you have to start your next beginning.” He kissed her forehead, and Belle fought against every fibre of her being to release his hand from hers.

He walked away into the dark of the night, and Belle sank back to the ground clutching her book. She opened it to the second last page, next to the phantom page that was there but now apart from the rest of the story. Belle knew he was right, and that was what made her heart break.

Belle had a responsibility that she was tasked with, a week, two weeks or three hours ago, time didn’t matter. With the added bundle of Emma, Belle couldn’t think about herself, it wasn’t about her. It was for them. The promise she made to both of them. That everything would be okay, that they would be happy and that they would have a home. It was time for her to fulfil it.

Belle never would have expected her adventure into a story would have ended this way, or what she would experience on the way. She had been the hero after all, but the hero in the wrong story. Her adventure inside the pages was still as it always has been, inside the pages. And eventually, always, Belle had to close the book no matter how much she loved the story and wanted it to never end.

Belle laid down to rest across from Bae and Emma, and after over an hour Rumplestiltskin returned from wherever he’d been. Belle pretended to be asleep and closed her eyes, hoping he wouldn’t know. She heard the rustling of his feet as he walked over to where Bae slept, and whispered something to him Belle couldn’t hear. She opened one eye and saw him holding the stone, and with the other waved over it as golden strings wove around the stone and became a necklace. With another wave, the necklace was around his son’s neck.

Belle closed her eyes again when Rumple turned around and sat away from them, and as much as she fought against herself, she felt herself slip into unconsciousness. Belle really didn’t like endings.

   
The next morning, Rumplestiltskin told Belle when he had disappeared he had gone to acquire what they needed to get back through to her world. A wand. More specifically, the wand of the Black Fairy that could recreate any magic, including the portal Zelena used to send Belle and Bae to the Enchanted Forest. all it would take, was one wave and that was that. They would be back home.

Leaving the Infinite Forest felt like a strange sensation, having spent so long immersed in trees and never-ending horizons and treacherous traps and snares, it felt slightly odd to be heading back to normal. Whatever normal was after this. They had journeyed back to where Rumple and Belle had first entered, and Belle remembered the rule he had explained to her when they had first set about on their deal. That only those in possession of a pure heart could leave. Rumple waved his hand and all four them materialised outside the labyrinth, and Belle realised he had been right. You did need to have a pure heart to leave, and Rumple had hers.

The journey back to where Belle has first met Rumple, where she had arrived in the Enchanted Forest, felt like it passed in the blink of an eye when the journey from it seemed like it had taken forever.

Bae and Emma were ready to go, and Belle had her back safely around her body as she unclasped the cloak and handed it back to Rumple. She wouldn’t need it back in her world, and she felt a lump rise in her throat as his hand wrapped around the cloak. Belle couldn’t do it, she couldn’t say goodbye. Instead she threw herself into his unsuspecting arms, and kissed the side of his neck. Rumple didn’t say anything but give her a teary nod and a vague smile beneath the sadness. She walked back over to Bae and Emma, and took their hands. Rumple stared at them longingly for a moment, and Belle begged with every fibre of her being for this not to be the end.

But she blinked, and she was back in her living room. It was 12:48am. They’d been gone for an hour and thirteen minutes.

 

 


	10. Home Is Where...

It felt strange being back, as though she’d woken from a very long dream that had seemed so real once she was asleep, but now growing more distant with each passing minute. The only reminders of what had happened was of Bae’s tired and confused expression, the necklace around his neck and Emma standing bewilderedly looking at the refrigerator.

It was time to start a new beginning, time to move on.

Belle didn’t sleep, as she tried to reacquaint herself with the world that had always been her home, but now seemed so strange and wrong. By the time it was 7am, and Ruby was coming to get Bae at 8am, Belle found herself standing in front of the one place she never would have thought before her journey. Her hand was prised on the handle of her closet and dug behind coats and shoe boxes and photo albums until she found it.

It was locked, and Belle didn’t have the key. Emma proved resourceful and skillful at lockpicking in any world, and sat next to Bae and Belle opened her mother’s box that held every last page Belle had never been brave enough to read.

“What are they?” Emma asked, picking up the last page of Alice in Wonderland.

“The last page to every book I read with my mother, I never wanted to stories to end when I was your age…” Belle reminisced, the memory feeling so odd, knowing what she knew now. The truth about her mother, about what Belle really wanted...Was this really what she wanted?

Bae pulled Emma to her feet and declared he was introducing her to tv, and they ran to the other room. Belle resumed her digging until she found the page she was after, the ending to Labyrinth and hungrily grabbed for it and turned it over. She read, and read every word, and as the words digested and she realised how the story was supposed to end. How it was supposed to be the entire time, it had been in front of her the entire time.

“He was my father wasn’t he?” Belle turned around and saw Bae standing in the door, holding the stone around his neck. Belle moved to sit on the edge of her bed, and Bae joined her.

“You’re smart aren’t you?” Belle joked, and Bae smiled.

“Why don’t I have any memories of him then?” Bae asked, and Belle pointed to the stone.

“Because the memories are in there. All of them. The good and the bad.” Bae stared at the stone more intently.

“But why didn’t he want me to remember him? Why did he make us leave?” Belle sighed, and wondered the same thing.

“He wanted you to be happy and safe, and he didn’t want to you to see him as a monster.” Belle said, but Bae only seemed to grow more confused.

“He’s my dad, I want to know him. Family are meant to stay together, no matter the bad. That’s when you need a family most.” Bae said, and Belle felt her eyes swell with tears. That was it...family are meant to be together. It wasn’t coincidence or dumb luck that had put Belle on this journey, that had crossed her path with Bae’s, it was fate. It was meant to be.

Belle had always had one foot in the world inside her mind the world around her, and she had finally lived both, explored both and found adventures. She thought she was choosing her own desires to be a hero over what she was supposed to do, but what if the two were the same? Her family wasn’t just here, her family was sitting on the bed beside her, and in the Enchanted Forest.

The doorbell rang, and Belle looked up in its direction. She couldn’t do this, she couldn’t give Bae away. This wasn’t their ending. He was her family now, this was how it was supposed to be. Belle can write her own ending, and chose the ending that wasn’t an ending at all, but a new beginning.

They had somewhere else to be.

~~~~

“I don’t remember adopting the girl.” Rumple muttered under his breath, and Belle just wrapped her arms around his waist from behind and rested her chin on his shoulder blade. It was a fantastic day in the Enchanted Forest, and Belle and Rumplestiltskin stood watching Bae and Emma excitedly explore their new home, the Dark Castle. Though, to Belle’s prompting, it hadn’t stayed dark for long when she commanded Rumple to remove the nails that held down the drapes.

“It’s just until we find her family, it won’t be forever.” Belle encouraged, and Rumple tried his hardest to not scream when Emma accidentally knocked over a vase chasing Bae. Emma gave Belle a worried look, but Belle only nodded that it was alright, and she took off like a lightning bolt to explore the next room.

“Papa! Can we go see the garden?” Bae ran up to his father and Belle with the widest smile Belle had ever seen him give someone, a smile not even the Dark One could refuse. Rumplestiltskin said it was alright, and soon the loud and excited screams of children became muffled as they flew outside and began to explore the vast and extravagant garden outside.

“Plus look how much fun they’re having!” Belle laughed, and Rumplestiltskin mumbled incoherently, but Belle was sure she heard “that vase was more expensive than you know,” as he continued to pretend to be grumpy and watching the children play outside. Belle jumped up and kissed his cheek quickly before she danced around to stand in front of him and wrap her arms around his neck.

“So, what was that it you wanted to show me?” Belle asked inquisitively, and Rumplestiltskin gave her the cheekiest grin before he wrapped them in a cloud of smoke, and transported them to another room. Belle reached up to her face and found Rumple had magicked a blindfold over her eyes that she tugged at in annoyance.

“You know I don’t like surprises.” she informed him as she felt his arm take hers and pull her forward. Wherever they were, it smelt musty and Belle felt sunlight in her face.

“You’ll like this one.” Rumple told her with a smile in his voice, and led her until they were in the centre of the mystery room. He wrapped his hands to cup her face, indulgently kissing her before he moved his hands to unwrap the blindfold.

It was a library. It was a library to end all other libraries. Books covered every surface as far her eyes could wander, winding stairs leading higher to more books, the room enlightened by a grand window that covered an entire wall and looked out over to a lake. Two armchairs sat by the window, and Belle didn’t know whether she wanted to scream or cry. All she could do gape at Rumple, who was enjoying every second of her dumbfounded reaction, he pulled her into his arms and kissed the top of her head.

“If you like, I can use magic to remove the last page of every book in this room, so the stories will never have to end.” Belle looked up to Rumple, and smiled lovingly at him.

“Some endings aren’t so bad.” Belle said, and wrapped her arms tighter around Rumplestiltskin, just enjoying this last page. This ending was all she ever wanted, and she would enjoy every minute of it.

 

 


End file.
